(I originally read these comics in early December 2015)
'Superior Foes' garnered a lot of praise at the time but fell short of my high expectations. It follows C-list Spidey villains Boomerang, Shocker, Speed Demon, Overdrive and the (new, female) Beetle as they form the latest incarnation of the Sinister Six. Why not the latest Sinister Syndicate, when three of the line-up have been mainstays of that second rate villain's union? Because then writer Nick Spencer wouldn't be able to milk the joke about there being only five of them to the point of tedium. It's postmodern, super-villain sitcom, see, with limited action but much post-Seinfeld wisecracking dialogue. These villains have shrinks. They attend super-villain support groups. There are intrusive, up-to-the-minute pop culture references on every other page. We witness Latverian monarch Doctor Doom in his boxer shorts and learn the Chameleon is a closet Katherine Heigl fan... *Yawn* The ongoing plot lines involve the possession of cyborg Maggia don Silvermane's disembodied head and the stealing of a portrait of Doom's real face from the Owl, and then the Chameleon. Double crosses are piled upon double crosses and the twists come thick and fast in the final issue, which had me flicking back pages, thinking, What the...?
It's all undeniably clever and well-written. Unfortunately, Spencer can't resist injecting his lefty politics here and there and the art, primarily by Steve Lieber, is serviceable but occasionally crude. There are also two fill-in issues in a row which derail the ongoing story and which I'm sure must have contributed to the title's cancellation. Despite all that, the story is wrapped up neatly and I read all seventeen issues over approximately twenty-four hours, so it was certainly doing something right.
Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) # 1-17 are collected in:
Hardcover:
Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) # 1-6 are collected in:
Softcover:
Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) # 7-11 are collected in:
Softcover:
Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) # 12-17 are collected in:
Softcover:
